Back-to-school season begins with an unprecedented 'catastrophic' teacher shortage (1 Viewer)

superchuck500

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I don't think it should be surprising when you consider all that teachers today have to go through for such unappealing compensation that the US is having a teacher shortage. But the reasons for it aside, this is a big problem and states are coming up with ways to deal with it that are obviously not ideal.

The public school system is on the verge of breaking in some places. States are allowing veterans and college students - with no teaching degrees or certifications - to teach public school.

After two full school seasons substantially disrupted by Covid, American education now faces an existential crisis.

Rural school districts in Texas are switching to four-day weeks this fall due to lack of staff. Florida is asking veterans with no teaching background to enter classrooms. Arizona is allowing college students to step in and instruct children.

The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels — and school officials everywhere are scrambling to ensure that, as students return to classrooms, someone will be there to educate them.

“I have never seen it this bad,” Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, said of the teacher shortage. “Right now it’s number one on the list of issues that are concerning school districts ... necessity is the mother of invention, and hard-pressed districts are going to have to come up with some solutions.”

It is hard to know exactly how many U.S. classrooms are short of teachers for the 2022-2023 school year; no national database precisely tracks the issue. But state- and district-level reports have emerged across the country detailing staffing gaps that stretch from the hundreds to the thousands — and remain wide open as summer winds rapidly to a close.

The Nevada State Education Association estimated that roughly 3,000 teaching jobs remained unfilled across the state’s 17 school districts as of early August. In a January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found that 88 percent of school districts statewide were having “problems with teacher shortages” — while 2,040 teacher openings were either empty or filled with a “less than qualified” hire. And in the Houston area, the largest five school districts are all reporting that between 200 and 1,000 teaching positions remain open.

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Maryland teachers are getting something like a 6% raise with retention bonuses that can add another couple thousand. Educators, like healthcare workers, have left their careers in droves during Covid.
 
Without thinking about it hard, I don't mind the Arizona plan to allow college students teach, so long as it is consistent with the substitute teacher rules. In Michigan, I know you needed like 90 credits to be a sub. Meaning, you finishes your 3rd year or Junior sequence.

I think there has been gross over certification. Forcing teachers to get masters within a certain time frame has always seemed silly. And overkill.

Just like some states over constrain social work. In AZ, if you get your masters in social work you then have to get an MSW license to be able to use your education and work towards your clinical license, LCSW. In Florida, you can just work with your masters, but if you want your LCSW, you just register. No early test. You're supervised. AZ is the same, except you have to take a teat and pay like $600, and I don't think you can just use your masters with no intention of clinical. You need your MSW cert.... beyond the degree.
 
Feature not a bug - many state legislatures have been working for years to break public education
Accurate.

Anyway the solution is obvious and I’ve been trying to explain it for awhile now - pay us in houseboats
Accurate.

Without thinking about it hard, I don't mind the Arizona plan to allow college students teach, so long as it is consistent with the substitute teacher rules. In Michigan, I know you needed like 90 credits to be a sub. Meaning, you finishes your 3rd year or Junior sequence.
In Mississippi, the substitute teaching requirements are basically that you need to pass a background check. That's it, whether you sub for a day or for a year.

I think there has been gross over certification. Forcing teachers to get masters within a certain time frame has always seemed silly. And overkill.
In Mississippi, a bachelor's is all a teacher needs, and no additional certification is required other than certification exams held in the student's last semester of college if your degree is in education. If your degree isn't in education, but you can pass an exam, you can still teach, or you can do the "alternate route" where you can begin teaching pretty much immediately, and take a few night classes on how to teach while that's happening.

Gross overcertification has never been the problem in our state.
 
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Where we are in Texas the school boards are being taken over by anti-education anti-intellectual conservatives backed by PAC money. These are largely rich bored housewives who think LGBT and CRT are worse than Hitler. Some have formed a group (Mothers for Liberty or something like that) who train other rich bored housewives to scour teacher social media for any sign of LGBT sympathetic posts and then work to discredit them and run them out of the school. They’re cancelling book fairs and not allowing librarians to buy new books because Scholastic is some “woke” agent. The ideological fearmongering is really bad here and no teacher would want to put up with it.

I know this post has veered into the dreaded political realm, but in this instance it is clearly vocal members of one party (that I happen to be registered as) who are being idiots and causing the problems. It’s moved beyond embarrassing and well into terrifying.
 
Our school district is short 20 teachers with classes starting on the 15th. Yesterday, a teacher at my wife's school unexpectedly quit. The school was already short staffed to the point of having to cram more kids into classrooms, increasing class size.

Here's our experience on how messed up public education can be with pay. Granted, teachers aren't paid enough to begin with, but this takes the cake. My wife is entering her 5th year of teaching. She has had a cumulative 6% salary increase since she started in 2018. The ISD increased starting teacher pay to 56k over the summer to try and attract more teachers. But they didn't bump existing teachers by an equal amount relative to the new starting salary. As a result, my wife will make $340 more than a new teacher, and she has 4 years of experience. When pressed on this the Superintendent basically shrugged it off and dismissed it as a reality of public education. I don't doubt he's correct, but that doesn't make it any less insane and messed up.
 
Where we are in Texas the school boards are being taken over by anti-education anti-intellectual conservatives backed by PAC money. These are largely rich bored housewives who think LGBT and CRT are worse than Hitler. Some have formed a group (Mothers for Liberty or something like that) who train other rich bored housewives to scour teacher social media for any sign of LGBT sympathetic posts and then work to discredit them and run them out of the school. They’re cancelling book fairs and not allowing librarians to buy new books because Scholastic is some “woke” agent. The ideological fearmongering is really bad here and no teacher would want to put up with it.

I know this post has veered into the dreaded political realm, but in this instance it is clearly vocal members of one party (that I happen to be registered as) who are being idiots and causing the problems. It’s moved beyond embarrassing and well into terrifying.
Those rich, bored housewives will be the first to scream when their precious kiddos are in classes with 30+ students because there's not enough teachers. Words and actions have consequences, and we're seeing it play out in public education here in Texas.
 
Where we are in Texas the school boards are being taken over by anti-education anti-intellectual conservatives backed by PAC money. These are largely rich bored housewives who think LGBT and CRT are worse than Hitler. Some have formed a group (Mothers for Liberty or something like that) who train other rich bored housewives to scour teacher social media for any sign of LGBT sympathetic posts and then work to discredit them and run them out of the school. They’re cancelling book fairs and not allowing librarians to buy new books because Scholastic is some “woke” agent. The ideological fearmongering is really bad here and no teacher would want to put up with it.

I know this post has veered into the dreaded political realm, but in this instance it is clearly vocal members of one party (that I happen to be registered as) who are being idiots and causing the problems. It’s moved beyond embarrassing and well into terrifying.
Our future looks more bleak every year.
 
I have 4 years to somehow talk my child out of her degree she starts pursuing next week ( Education BA/Graduate degree ). I just know that she is dead set on teaching History. Her 9th grade teacher, Mr. Faucheux, left an indelible impression on her and she knew then she wanted to teach History.

Maybe, just maybe, in 5 years, the whole situation around teaching ( pay, retention etc ) will have flipped and she will enter into a career that she not only loves, but will be compensated for the work, effort and love put in.
 
Without any statistical merit, I've noticed over the last 5-10 years, less and less young women are taking up teaching as a career path (at least in my general community). I even tried to steer my daughter into that field (mostly due to summers and holidays off), but she was not interested. More and more young women are headed into health care related fields.

I'd be curious to see if this is real or perceived. If I had to guess, enrollment in education is down. Maybe not significantly, but down some.
 

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